Archive for February, 2011

Several readers inquired about the possibilities of homeopathic use for the problems of progressing age. This article is an attempt to answer those queries.

Aging is inevitable for all of us who will be lucky enough to get there. Aging with grace, dignity and good health is one of the blessings of life. Good health comprises physical and mental well-being. Homeopathy is a system of medicine that can help to maintain good health for as long as we live.

However much we want to be free of health problems, our aging years bring with them some sort of ailment or disability. There could be physical problems like pain and stiffness of the joints, weakening brittle bones, vertigo, trembling, debility and gait disturbances, diminishing bladder control, sleeplessness, recurrent respiratory infections, complications of chronic conditions like heart disease, diabetes, etc. Aging could affect our mental sphere bringing on depression, decline in our cognitive functions, memory, etc.

Often I come across patients who are overwhelmed by the name of a diagnosis given to them. This brings on anxiety and often depression at the thought of a ‘big and unknown’ illness. My advice to them would be not to get scared of the ‘disease term’ used; ask your doctor to explain what the condition is all about and what the common terminology is for it. Patients have every right to ask their doctors for details. Many patients have come to me, worried that they have “vertigo”. They say that they had suffered from dizziness, in Gujarati called ‘chakkar’, but the doctor said they had vertigo. And this gets them worried. It is a big relief for them to know that vertigo is the medical term for dizziness. This is just a small example, this happens commonly with many other ailments.

Many a time, we see senior citizens being diagnosed with a chronic disease condition and then put on long-term medication that brings on its own share of side-effects, adding to the ill-health and suffering that the patient has to put up with. Homoeopathy is ideal for such situations – the remedies, in their correct potency and dosage are safe from side-effects (because they are not chemical drugs but potentized electromagnetic energy forms of the remedy substance), they are easy to take and are cheaper than conventional medicine treatments. Homoeopathic remedies, for all chronic conditions, are chosen with due emphasis on the individual patient and not the disease name. When remedies are chosen in this manner, they work to stimulate the immune system of the patient, making all the body systems run optimally. The body’s own healing mechanism is given a boost and the process of cure is begun. It is important to realize that ailments that have existed for many years will not go away in a few months. Patience is essential. However, some kind of improvement should certainly be visible in about 3 – 4 months. In cases where cure is not possible, homoeopathic remedies serve to give relief and keep the patient as comfortable as possible. The progress of chronic degenerative illnesses can be slowed down by homoeopathy, if the patient is beyond the reach of cure.

Our senior citizens often suffer from acute health problems like coughs, colds, digestive disturbances, etc., that are triggered by environmental conditions, due to a weakened immunity. Strong chemical drugs may help to contain the infection but bring on diarrhoea and weakness that stays with them a long time. Homoeopathic remedies are effective even in acute conditions and work rapidly to eliminate the problem without the addition of side-effects. In such acute conditions, the homoeopath does not need to know the life history of the patient; details about the acute problem itself – details about the origin, duration and progress are enough to aid the homoeopath to select a suitable remedy. A well-selected remedy can deal with an acute problem very rapidly, within minutes to hours. The patient is left free of the problem and with good vitality.

To conclude, a senior citizen, with the help of homoeopathy, has very good chances of staying relatively healthy, avoiding unnecessary hospitalization and enjoying the retirement years in the best way possible.

After several queries, I have decided to write about the twenty most effective remedies that are regularly used for infants and children in homoeopathic practice. These are not ‘constitutional’ remedies (remedies for eradicating long-term problems or inherited tendencies) but those that are commonly used for acute problems and which every household with young children should stock.

This article is not meant to encourage home-prescribing, but to build up awareness about the great potential that homoeopathy has to solve most problems that children encounter; safely and gently, without the use of strong chemical drugs like antibiotics.

Nowadays, we see a lot of children in our practice that come with health problems that could easily have been avoided, had homoeopathy been resorted to in the first place. Instead, anxious parents, unknowingly, often compel their doctors to prescribe strong medicines like antibiotics even for routine coughs, colds and fevers. This way, the body’s own immunity does not adequately learn how to fight infections and hence the next rounds of infection come sooner and sooner. This leads to a vicious circle of infections and antibiotics with the child’s immunity taking a battering. As the child’s immunity continues to suffer, the child becomes more and more disposed to developing more serious infections and conditions like ear infections, chronic otitis media, tonsillitis, bronchitis and even bronchial asthma. Chronic ailments like skin allergies and eczema also become more common. These are usually considered as new ailments and never linked to the actual immunity lowering cause.

With correct homoeopathic prescribing, all the acute coughs, colds, fevers and even the more serious conditions like ear infections, chronic otitis media, tonsillitis, bronchitis and bronchial asthma can be treated well. Homoeopathic remedies stimulate the immune system to function optimally and, over time, the immunity improves and children’s own bodies are able to fight off most infections without the need for any medication. For such immunity-improving treatment, detailed constitutional therapy is essential – this requires a detailed case taking and proper case management. However, the list given below contains remedies often used for acute problems, from which, even at odd hours of the day or night, your homoeopath can choose the suitable remedy based on the symptoms present. Such a kit kept at home can be handy and valuable.

1. ACONITE
This is a remedy useful for the congestive stage of inflammation before localization takes place. Ailments arise from exposure to dry cold air, drafts of cold air especially when overheated. Ailments come on suddenly with intense symptoms. High fevers where the face is red or red and pale alternately. There is great thirst for large quantities of cold water, lot of restlessness and tossing about. Teething children may develop convulsions. Cough is dry, hoarse and croupy, more on expiration.

2. AETHUSA CYNAPIUM
Suited to children during dentition who develop complaints in hot summer weather, children who cannot tolerate milk. Milk is vomited in large curds as soon as it is taken, vomiting leads to intense weakness and drowsiness. The child sleeps and then wakes up hungry and crying, drinks milks again and the cycle repeats. The child’s face bears and expression of pain and anxiety.

3. ANTIMONIUM TART
Children with cough where there seems to be a large collection of mucus but nothing comes up. Child is clingy and wants to be carried but won’t let anyone else touch him. Vomiting that is followed by drowsiness and great weakness. Tongue is coated pasty, thick and white. Great inclination to sleep with nearly all complaints. Useful for children at birth who are pale, breathless and gasping; prevents asphyxia neonatorum. Most ailments seem to come on in damp weather or from living in damp rooms.

4. ARNICA MONTANA
Very useful for the falls and bumps that children get as a routine part of growing up. Prevents serious repercussions of head injuries and is known to absorb bleeding that has occurred into the brain after a head injury. Also useful for the bad effects of injuries received a long time ago. Useful also for mechanical blunt injuries that result in stupor from concussion with involuntary passage of stools and urine. Injuries bring on a sore, lame, bruised feeling, as if beaten. Whole body is oversensitive. Everything on which he lies feels very hard, keeps moving from place to place in search of a soft spot.
* Do not use Arnica ointment on any open wounds.

5. ARSENICUM ALBUM
For the start of colds with intense sneezing, watery nasal discharge and thirst for sips of cold water frequently. Fevers with restlessness where children want to be carried rapidly. Also useful for tummy upsets that result from cold food or drink or from eating bad meat. Nausea at the smell or sight of food, diarrhoea after eating or drinking, watery stools with great weakness.

6. BELLADONNA
Suited to children with great liability to catch colds; sensitive to drafts of air especially when uncovering the head or after a hair cut, tonsillitis after exposure to cold winds. Sudden onset of ailments with redness of face or eyes with most complaints. Tongue has a strawberry red appearance. Pulse is full and bounding, congestive headaches worse from slight noise, light, jar, movement; better by tight bandaging or pressure. Useful for convulsions during teething, with fever where the head is hot and the feet are cold. For children who get delirious with fever.

7. CALENDULA
One of the best antiseptic remedies in homoeopathy. Very useful for open wounds to promote healthy healing of tissue and prevent excessive pus formation. Useful as oral medicine as well as application of Calendula ointment on the wounds. Also for use post-surgically to promote rapid healing.

8. CHAMOMILLA
Useful for children – newborn and during the teething period. Ailments from cold, anger, dentition. Child is exceedingly irritable and fretful, quiet only when being carried. Impatient and demanding, rejecting the thing when given. Whining and moaning constantly. Intense pains (eg., ear pains) with great oversensitivity, one cheek red and hot, the other pale and cold. Great aversion to wind especially about the ears. Diarrhoea of teething infants where the stools are green, watery, like chopped eggs and spinach, hot and very offensive.

9. CINA
For complaints of children who are very irritable and cross, want to be carried but carrying gives no relief. They do not want to be touched and cannot bear anyone coming close. Constantly digging and boring at the nose. Worm complaints with startling and screaming during sleep and grinding of teeth.

10. COLOCYNTH
Very useful for abdominal colic. Agonising pains making the child bend double. Great restlessness, twisting and turning about for relief. Pains are better by hard pressure. Irritable and impatient, throwing things out of his hands.

11. FERRUM PHOS
Very useful for inflammatory conditions and fevers especially the first stages. Easy flushing of the face, less intense symptoms than of Aconite and Belladonna. Pulse is soft and flowing. Often useful in fevers of children when there are no other symptoms to guide to a suitable remedy.

12. IPECACUANHA
Also known as Ipecac, it is a very useful remedy for coughs of children that are dry, spasmodic and asthmatic. Breathlessness with wheezing. Cough that often results in gagging, retching and vomiting of white frothy phlegm. Most complaints are accompanied by nausea with profuse saliva and vomiting; vomiting without relief. Tongue is clean or slightly coated.

13. JALAPA
For the colic and diarrhoea of children where the children are good all day long but scream and are very restless and troublesome at night.

14. KALI MUR
A useful remedy to cut short colds right at the beginning, also useful for sub-acute inflammatory states. Stuffy colds with ear involvement. Greyish-white slimy coating of the tongue.

15. PODOPHYLLUM
Diarrhoea of children during teething and in hot weather, worse from eating and worse while being bathed or washed. Stools are profuse, painless, of varying colour, often yellow, watery and very offensive.

16. PULSATILLA
Commonly used for colds with yellow discharges, stuffed up noses where the symptoms are changing often. Most symptoms are better in open air and worse indoors. Absence of thirst with most complaints and indigestion from eating rich food. Tendency to styes and agglutination of eyes with yellow sticky discharges on waking.

17. RHEUM
Suitable for children, especially during dentition. Sour smell of the whole body, child smells sour even after washing. Children cry and toss about all night. Impatient, desires many things and cries, dislikes even favourite playthings. Constant sweat of scalp keeping the hair always wet.

18. RHUS TOX
For coughs and colds after getting wet that result in muscle pains and flu-like symptoms. Corners of the mouth are ulcerated with fever blisters around the mouth. Very useful for sprains and strains where symptoms are worse on initial movement and better by walking or continued motion.

19. SAMBUCUS NIGRA
For dry colds of infants where the nose is dry and completely blocked, preventing breathing and nursing. The child awakens suddenly, nearly suffocated and gasps for breath. Difficulty in breathing out. Suffocative coughs with crying children.

20. SENNA
Very useful in intestinal colics where the child seems full of wind. Clinically used most often for third-month-colic of infants.

Besides these twenty, many other remedies may be suitable to a given case, based on symptoms that individual children present. These are just some guidelines and I reiterate once more that it is best to consult your homoeopath for proper remedy selection and dosage, this will give safe, gentle and speedy results.